One of the pioneers of Afro-funk music, the saxophonist Manu Dibango, has died of COVID-19. He was 86 years old, and died in Paris. Internationally, he was best known for his 1972 song "Soul Makossa," though his entire oeuvre could have been the soundtrack to a cooler 1970s than most people lived. But that one, funk-drenched hit, lit by Dibango's burning saxophone, went on to influence the sound of American disco — and its hooky spoken intro helped power songs by Michael Jackson and Rihanna.

Dibango's death was announced on social media by his representatives, who said that he died Tuesday at age 86 due to the coronavirus; they had also announced last Wednesday that he had been hospitalized due to the pandemic. A public memorial will be "organized when possible," the announcement said.

The Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki, who has died aged 86, was an outstanding representative of musical modernism’s success in the 1960s. From the early 70s he became equally emblematic of the subsequent failure of so many of that modernism’s principal pioneers to sustain a lifelong career without abandoning their original principles.

The Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki, who has died aged 86, was an outstanding representative of musical modernism’s success in the 1960s. From the early 70s he became equally emblematic of the subsequent failure of so many of that modernism’s principal pioneers to sustain a lifelong career without abandoning their original principles.

Margaret Burbidge, a self-described “watcher of the skies” whose research shed light on distant galaxies, mysterious quasars and the origins of chemical elements, helping to explain how humans and most everything else are made of stardust, died April 5 at her home in San Francisco. She was 100.

Jake Tapper
@jaketapper
·
7m
A friend of Mort Drucker’s, cartoonist John Reiner, emails me: “I’m sorry to say that Mort passed away last night. I saw him last Friday-he was having trouble breathing- Was not the Coronavirus as he was quarantined for weeks with no other outside contact....

1965

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

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